Over my recruiting career one of the most common objections me and my team hear from hiring managers and HR is, “we don’t need a recruiter right now, we are are running job ads online.” I get it, not every company has the budget to pay a five-figure recruiting fee for every position they are hiring for, but if you do have the budget and/or use recruiting firms why not compare your job ad candidates to the hidden talent your recruiter will find for you. After all, if you are partnered with a contingency search firm it costs you nothing to interview candidates and allows you to compare them to the candidates you receive from the job ads, for free!
As a hiring manager, here are a few things you need to consider before blowing off that recruiter because your company is “running job ads.”
- Top talent is not searching job ads, they are buried in excellence. Think about it, you probably aren’t looking for a new job right now, but would consider the “right” opportunity so how often are you searching the job boards?
- Your job ad is boring and uninspiring so even if a top performer was looking at your job ad, which chances are they aren’t, does it make them want to apply? I doubt it.
- Top talent wants to be at the front of the line, not have to go through the HR red tape required by some companies.
- Passive candidates want to minimize the number of people who know they are considering other things, making it important that they are dealing with decision makers from the start not an HR generalist who knows nothing about the technical specs of the job or the intangibles need for the position.
- Top talent is usually represented by a specialized recruiting firm, making it important to be open minded about using a specialized recruiting firm for you difficult searches.
- Top talent is busy and they enjoy the freedom of knowing that a recruiting firm will call them with the right opportunity, NOT every opportunity.
- Bottom line is that when you partner with a specialty recruiting firm, you are guaranteed to see a better pool of talent than those who apply to a job ad. Why would you not want to make sure you are hiring the best person not just a warm body. It’s a ZERO RISK proposition when you work with a contingency search firm.
I hope this information helps. If you would like access to our hidden network of talent or if you just want me to review and and suggest ideas for your job ad, hit me up, I would love to help.